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Andrew Doyle (comedian)

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Andrew Doyle
Doyle in 2024
Born1978 or 1979 (age 45–46)[1]
Derry, Northern Ireland
MediumPrint, theatre, social media
EducationAberystwyth University (BA), University of York (MA), Wadham College, Oxford (DPhil)
GenresPolitical satire
Notable works and rolesSpiked magazine, Jonathan Pie

Andrew Doyle is a playwright, journalist, and political satirist from Northern Ireland, who has written for the fictional character Jonathan Pie[2] and created the character Titania McGrath.[3][4]

Early life and education

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Doyle is from an Irish Catholic background, and was born in Derry, Northern Ireland.[5][6] He completed his undergraduate studies at Aberystwyth University before obtaining a master's degree at the University of York.[7] He holds a doctorate in early Renaissance poetry from the University of Oxford, having studied at Wadham College, Oxford.[8]

Career

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Doyle regularly writes for Spiked, and runs a comedy night in London called "Comedy Unleashed". He has performed his stand-up shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, four of which have also been performed at the Soho Theatre, London. He has appeared on Sky News as a commentator, and as a panel-member on The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4. He has been a speaker at the Battle of Ideas Festival in London, an annual event hosted by the Institute of Ideas.[9][non-primary source needed]

He was previously a visiting research fellow at Queen's University, Belfast,[10] where he worked on the writings of Forrest Reid.[11] Doyle originally worked as a teacher, including alongside Simon Warr at Royal Hospital School.[12]

In April 2018 Doyle created the fictional character of Titania McGrath, initially via a parody twitter account. According to Doyle, the character was designed to mock "woke culture".[13] The McGrath twitter account has been suspended for hate speech four times.[1][14] Doyle has written two books under the guise of the character. The first was Woke: A Guide to Social Justice published 7 March 2019[15] and a parody of children's books, My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism published September 2020.[16] In March 2019, Doyle was contacted by Rosamund Urwin, a journalist at The Sunday Times, who asked whether he was the person behind McGrath's Twitter account, due to the inclusion of several sources in McGrath's book that he had quoted previously. Though he denied it, he later revealed himself as the man behind the account.[13]

In February 2019, Doyle wrote a text in The Independent under the pseudonym Liam Evans.[17] The piece expressed dismay at comedy material performed on stage. After admitting he wrote it as a hoax, Doyle claimed the newspaper had published it without sufficiently checking the writer. The Independent's executive editor said that "The suggestion [...] that it is so outlandish that it must be false, is bizarre." Doyle also pointed out that if reading the fourth letter of every sentence in the text, it spells out "Titania McGrath wrote this you gullible hacks".[18]

Since 2021, Doyle has hosted a weekly show titled Free Speech Nation on GB News.[19][better source needed]

Publications

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Doyle is the co-author with Tom Walker of Jonathan Pie: Off the Record (2017).[20] He is also the author of Titania McGrath's Woke: A Guide to Social Justice (2019). It was positively received by a large number of celebrities including Ricky Gervais, as well as numerous right-leaning commentators. It was negatively reviewed by Alex Clark in The Guardian, writing that Doyle was making a cheap shot by poking fun at identity politics.[21] Doyle used the Titania McGrath pseudonym for My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism (2020), published by Little, Brown in September 2020.[16][22][23][24] He is the author of Free Speech and Why It Matters (2021)[25] and The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World (2022).[26]

Political views

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Doyle describes himself as left-wing and criticises political correctness and identity politics. He is a Brexit supporter.[27][28] Doyle supported Jeremy Corbyn during the 2017 United Kingdom general election.[29]

Personal life

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Doyle is gay.[30] His uncle is political activist Eamonn Melaugh.[31]

Plays

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  • Borderland
  • Jimmy Murphy Makes Amends (BBC Radio 4)
  • The Second Mr Bailey (BBC Radio 4)
  • Reacher's Point (BBC Radio 4)

Bibliography

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  • Jonathan Pie: Off the Record (2017)
  • Titania McGrath's Woke: A Guide to Social Justice (2019)
  • Titania McGrath's: My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism (2020)
  • Free Speech and Why It Matters (2021)
  • The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World (2022)

References

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  1. ^ a b Turner, Janice (8 March 2019). "Woke: A Guide to Social Justice by Titania McGrath review — how to be a modern leftie". The Times. Archived from the original on 8 March 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  2. ^ Doyle, Andrew (25 November 2016). "Jonathan Pie Said The Left Was Wrong, Not The Right Was Right". HuffPost. Retrieved 27 May 2022.
  3. ^ Doyle, Andrew. "Why I invented Titania McGrath". spiked-online.com. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  4. ^ Lyons, Izzy (6 March 2019). "Titania McGrath: 'Queen of woke Twitter culture' sheds his online mask". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  5. ^ Richardson, Jay (2019). "Andrew Doyle: Friendly Fire". The List. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  6. ^ Coyle, Conor (22 December 2019). "Young actors wanted for new Lyric Theatre musical". Belfast Live. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
  7. ^ Maxwell, Dominic (22 February 2021). "Pro-Brexit, anti-woke: the comic breaking all the rules". The Times.
  8. ^ Paige, Jonathan (7 March 2019). "Unmasked: Twitter satirist who pokes fun at 'woke'". The Times. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
  9. ^ Speakers Andrew Doyle Battle of Ideas Festival
  10. ^ Shermer, Michael (13 September 2022). "Andrew Doyle — How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World". Skeptic.
  11. ^ "Crying for Elysium: stories, poems, essays". Special Collections Blog. Queen's University, Belfast. 3 September 2018. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  12. ^ Doyle, Andrew (24 February 2020). "RIP Simon Warr". spiked-online.com. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  13. ^ a b Lyons, Izzy (6 March 2019). "Titania McGrath: 'Queen of woke Twitter culture' sheds his online mask". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  14. ^ Elfwick, Godfrey (10 December 2019). "Welcome back Titania McGrath!". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  15. ^ McGrath, Titania (3 September 2019). Woke: A Guide to Social Justice. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-1472130846.
  16. ^ a b My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism. Little, Brown and Company. 22 April 2024. ISBN 9781472134271.
  17. ^ Liam Evans. "As a comedy aficionado, I'm appalled at disgusting 'jokes' creeping back into the industry", The Independent, 26 February 2019.
  18. ^ Jay Richardson and Steve Bennett. "Hoax! Truth behind 'hate speech in comedy' article revealed", Chortle, 11 December 2019.
  19. ^ GB News [@GBNEWS] (18 March 2021). "Comedian, writer and cultural commentator @andrewdoyle_com is joining GB News" (Tweet). Retrieved 18 March 2021 – via Twitter.
  20. ^ Pie, Jonathan (10 May 2017). Jonathan Pie: Off the Record. Blink. ISBN 9781911600596.
  21. ^ Clark, Alex (10 March 2019). "Titania McGrath: laugh if you want, but woke's no joke". The Guardian. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  22. ^ Dessau, Bruce (23 July 2019). "News: Alice Marshall To Play Titania McGrath". Beyond The Joke. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  23. ^ McGrath, Titania (5 July 2020). My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism. Little, Brown Book Group Limited. ISBN 978-1-4721-3427-1.
  24. ^ Jameson, Greg (September 2020). "Titania McGrath – My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism review". Entertainment Focus. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  25. ^ Shriver, Lionel. "Free Speech and Why It Matters by Andrew Doyle review — why the free speech crisis is no joke". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  26. ^ Owolade, Tomida (28 August 2022). "The New Puritans by Andrew Doyle: skewering the culture wars". The Times. Retrieved 28 August 2022.
  27. ^ Logan, Brian (25 August 2017). "'Why did the lefty cross the road?' How liberal Edinburgh comics are panning PC". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  28. ^ Applebaum, Anne (29 January 2020). "Brexit Reveals a Whole New Set of Political Wounds". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  29. ^ Doyle, Andrew (18 May 2019). "I went to war with the PC police – and gained 260K followers". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 22 May 2019. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
  30. ^ "Resisting Wokeness: Andrew Doyle and Douglas Murray in conversation". 22 November 2019. Retrieved 27 November 2022 – via YouTube.
  31. ^ Doyle, Andrew (14 August 2019). "If the state had treated people equally, none of this would have happened". Spiked. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
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